A love meant to be

Allan can still remember the first time he laid eyes on Elizabeth. They met at the Warrick Rodeo, in Queensland, when Allan was only 17 years old. He was a spectator, and Elizabeth was competing. When they crossed paths, Allan said he jokingly bragged to her how good he was, but she told him he was full of rubbish. When Allan left the rodeo to get on the bus later that day, he saw her again not realising they were getting on the same bus, so Allan said he ‘started to give her a hard time.’ The day after the rodeo, he jumped on the train, and there on the same carriage was Elizabeth. Allan said he felt like ‘it was meant to be’ so asked her out on a date.

The couple were married in 1956, when Allan was 19 years old, and Elizabeth was 17 years old. They had four children together, then fostered for two and a half years before adopting five more children. Allan recalls that Elizabeth ‘had the gift of help, loved helping others’. She enjoyed hosting guests and they always had people over for dinner.

‘My wife meant everything to me. She was the mother of my kids and organised my life,’ Allan recalls that Elizabeth helped him out a lot with his work decisions. ‘I got the sack as a boiler maker,’ he says, ‘My wife decided she would find me a job, she looked in the paper and found a job for a policeman.’ Following Elizabeth’s advice, he applied and was accepted straight away.

Allan sadly lost Elizabeth eight years ago but reflecting on a lifetime of memories he says Elizabeth was, ‘Just a good woman. I think that any wife shapes any man’.

When asked what the secret to their 59 years of marriage was, Allan said if they disagreed about anything they discussed it. ‘Once it was spoken about and sorted, it was finished and never brought up again. We kept it that way right up till my wife passed away.’